Final Step Into Madness
by Bekas Strife
Summary: Chaos wasn't just there, lingering, stopping their metabolisms. It played with their minds. People started to change... And Noel was one of them. / 'Don't worry. I'm not going anywhere.' - NoeHopu oneshot. Set sometime before the events of Lightning Returns.


_**DISCLAIMER: I do not own FFXIII or any of the characters. Unfortunately. Otherwise, Noel**__**and Hope would be the main characters of the third game.**_

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**My first try at NoeHopu fan fiction. Writing is hard, okay?**

**This is set a little while before the events of Lightning Returns.**

**Enjoy!**

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Hope was the first to stir.

Try as he might, he simply could not shake off the routine that had been drilled into him in the past, back when he still was a director of Academia, and that required him to be up bright and early. However, he could still ignore the little voice telling him to get up. And he planned on it.

Shifting further into the warm, heavy blankets, Hope listened to the soft pitter-patter of raindrops on their tiny window and to the soft breathing of the man lying beside him.

When Valhalla crashed into their world and chaos took over, he had absolutely no idea of what they would have in store at first. Surely, he formed theories and made weak guesses but never had he predicted that he would still be breathing hundreds of years after their actions had doomed the world or that his and Noel's relationship would have reached such a stage.

Cracking his eyes open in the dim light of the room, Hope blinked a couple times to clear his vision before he focused on the face in front of his. Appearance wise, they had remained mainly unchanged. The years had hardened them, however. Impossible not to, with the hardships they first went through: Serah's death, whose body vanished into thin air soon after chaos hit, Mog's apparent coma, Academia's fall and then the consequent search for someone to blame for the world's doom... It all contributed for their disappearance from the world. Forced to hide as criminals, they hid somewhere in the middle of the Archylte Steppe mountains, in a small valley. It took them a lot of time and an extraordinary amount of effort but they built a small shack where they could live in relative peace, carefully hidden between rocks and thick foliage.

It was hard, especially for Noel, to live in solitude and only leave their little hole in order to hunt and get water. He had already gone through it once and it was hard enough that it drove him to their timeline. Having to go through it twice after finally getting used to being surrounded by people was just cruel. One good thing came out if it, he might say: it did end up strengthening their bond.

How could it not, when it was just the two of them for years on end?

Initially, their 'connection' was simply physical. It was nothing more than a release; a craving for close contact and for human warmth, for _comfort_. Years went by though, and what meant nothing became so much more as feelings grew and took over.

Slipping his arm around Noel's slender waist, Hope shuffled closer and nuzzled their noses, smiling slightly at the soft snuffle that escaped the other man at the sudden touch and accommodating the small adjustments Noel unconsciously went through before falling back into a deep sleep. The amount of trust the hunter had on him now still baffled him sometimes, knowing how skittish he had been in the beginning of their enclosure. The smallest noise would wake him up fully, hand ready on the dagger he learnt to sleep with. Now, he could go as far as rolling them in the bed when he needed to get up, as Noel tended to cling when given the invitation to, and the brunette would not bat an eye.

He was beginning to worry him, however. Lightly brushing his fingers through the bangs falling onto Noel's eyes, Hope regarded the white strands that mingled with the other man's chocolate brown hair with apprehension. After all of his time-hopping, he had been a full twenty-seven years old and the most he got was a couple white hairs that could barely be seen in the midst of his head-full of silver hair. Noel was stuck at eighteen. So, he got to thinking.

At first, he thought, due to Noel's heritage and the tough times he lived in, that he was genetically programmed to age in a faster rate than he was, considering the low life expectation his tribe had. Such a trail of thought had led to a completely different kind of worry such as the fear of being left alone in a world where they only had each other.

His theory had been put aside when, in a mere three months, the left side of Noel's fringe had turned mostly white. In their state of time suspension, three months were nothing. It couldn't be just age; it wouldn't be enough for such tragic changes. Noel didn't seem too bothered by it, if his simple huff of annoyance had been any indication when he looked at his reflection that day. Still, he couldn't help but worry. He was missing something, something important.

Then came the days when it was a little safer to come out. To visit any close populations and try and learn what they had missed in the years that had been underground.

Hope had gone straight to work and carefully created a data network. The era didn't matter: knowledge used to be and still _was_ _power_. Noel decided to do what he did best: hunt.

Soon, Hope began to learn of the effects of chaos in people. It wasn't only that time had stopped for them and as such, no-one died of old age. Chaos wasn't just there, lingering, stopping their metabolisms. It played with their minds. People started to change. Violence shoot up, insanity reached new levels and then took on many forms.

Chaos also manifested physically. The symptoms of the infection were always the same: people's hair grayed and their eyes gained a faint, unnatural glow, the formed being the most notable of both signs, given that it was the very last step to manifest before people lost their sanity.

Understandably, such discoveries made his heart feel heavy. Chaos had gripped them and took its toll on them when they thought they had been _safe_. Having shared his discoveries with Noel, neither of them knew what to do. There was nothing they _could_ do, if they were to be honest, except saving the world and returning it to its previous state. So they started to investigate and try to come up with a solution.

Nevertheless, Hope had taken to check Noel's eyes for the glow every day, despite the brunette's reassurances that he was okay. It didn't matter how well you _felt_; chaos snuck up on you and Hope was determined to be prepared. Reassurances stopped as the days stretched into weeks and months, since Noel knew that Hope would not relent, no matter what. Instead, he had taken to holding his eyes without a fuss whenever he checked, trying to convey some sort of comfort.

_I'm here. I'm not going anywhere, _they seemed to say.

Hope frowned in frustration, removing his hand from Noel's waist to tiredly rub his face. It was too early to be this awake and troubled. Worrying wouldn't do him any good at the moment, either. Dropping his hand back where it was before, Hope regarded the other man's sleeping face before he leant forward, fluttering his eyes closed as he pressed a soft kiss to the corner of Noel's mouth. Feeling previously slack fingers go taut against his chest, the older man kept pressing small kisses down to Noel's jaw and then back to his lips, feeling rather than seeing the other's face light up with awareness as he sucked on his bottom lip. "Well, hi..." Noel murmured with a hint of amusement, his voice sounding thick with sleep. Hope simply hummed a reply, not exactly wanting to stop right away what he was doing. "What time is it…?"

"Early. It's raining."

That brought a content grin to Noel's face. "Lazy day…?"

"I wouldn't have it any other way."

"Good."

Laughing lightly as Noel suddenly turned – pounced, really – on him, Hope reached to grab and throw the blankets over their heads, effectively hiding them from the pesky morning light that was starting to fill the small room. At this point in their considerably long lives, it wasn't like they needed light to find each other, anyway. They were well acquainted with each other's bodies to know where and how to touch and when it would be too much or too little.

For many, having the same partner for so long would have become tedious. For them, it was _home_.

"Every day should be a lazy day." Noel breathed softly between languid kisses, pleasantly warm and content against the other man. "_Especially_ if this is how I get woken up."

"Don't worry. We have all the time in the world."

Hope did believe it; every single word. Such a slice of knowledge was like a security blanket in a world that, while stagnant, kept throwing them through a loop.

However, the moment Noel opened his eyes the delusion shattered for, in the obscurity of their blankets, it was impossible to miss the ethereal glow of chaos deep within his eyes.

And so began the journey to their end.


End file.
